Run the Mile
by Old Emerald Eye
Summary: Melina dreams of being chased through endless grey hallways.


Pairing: Lori/Melina

TW: possible dubious consent due to (canon) memory wipe/personality implant

* * *

Melina dreams of being chased through endless grey hallways.

She's running. Running endlessly, mile after mile after mile. Always running, down an abandoned hallway that seems to never end. Running past grey walls, into a room, to a window. The guy makes it out. She makes sure of that, even if it means she's looking forward to interrogation and a swift execution to follow. The threat is utterly omnipresent, and as distant as everything else she feels, cold and grey and washed out.

She gets him out the window, and the UFBSec catch her, trip her up and haul, bring her crashing back against the wall. Bring her universe crackling back to darkness.

Melina jolts up out of bed, throwing off duvet and blankets and a weight – rope? No, it's a limb, an arm – that's trying to keep her down, trying to -

Home. She's at home. No one's chasing her, and there's no one shooting anywhere within earshot. It's dark, but it's quiet and calm and she knows she is _safe_ here. Now, if only her body would get the message, she could roll over and get back to sleep without-

"Mmmph? Honey, what is it?" Lori blinks awake in the blankets beside her, incoherent but conversational, her arm pulling her tight against Melina's side until they're close as any two bodies can be.

Melina doesn't have the breath to answer her. It had felt so real, the wires wrapped around her arms, the impact of the wall, the _burn _as her limbs -

"Hey, hey. Are you okay? Was it another dream?"

She breathes in deep. Holds the air till her lungs burn. Breathes out, slow and steady. Her back is fine. Her arms are free. She is fine. She is fine, and safe, and physically whole, but Lori's worried. She forces herself calm. It wasn't real. Just a dream.

"Just someone chasing me. Nothing new. I'm fine."

Lori wriggles somehow impossibly closer, snakes her arm across shoulders, soft and slow, snuggles her head into the crook of neck when

"You know, dreams of being chased can mean anxiety, or fear of being attacked. It's not a bad thing, not after those attacks down by the market last month."

Melina blinks at her. "You looked it up?"

Lori smiles up at her like her sleep addled tongue isn't asking the most inane questions.

"Of course I did."

She really, truly loves her wife. Not a day goes by but she's stuck again by the luck she had, getting this amazing woman to marry her.

In fact, she loves her so much she lets her pull her down to the pillow, and to her lips, and -

Ends up being tired all day, but then again with her dreams she would've been anyway. What's another half an hour of sleep lost between galpals? Even the threat of layoffs – again, there never seems to be an end to them, and Mel knows she's better off than most, with a second income from – can't keep the smile from her face.

Even so, that evening cannot come soon enough. She even has something remotely interesting to talk about today. There's only so many ways she can rearrange 'I move robots around' and still have something new to say, so having an actually new piece of news...well, that's worth at least a round for the boys.

"Honey?"

"Yes dear?"

"You know Rekall?

"Like, repressed memories?" Lori pulls away enough to frown up at her. Feels cold without her tucked against her side. "Why, where did you hear about that?"

"One of the guys at work was talking about it. Said they can make fantasies come true, better than any interactive vid – "

Lori's concerned grasp breaks her stream of words. Unfortunately for the meaning of the emotion it conveys, it lands on her chest and – _now is not the time to be distracted_. Even if her wife groping her is very distracting.

"Honey, no, they mess with your head. Don't do that to yourself. Promise me you won't."

She chokes on her on her instinctive quip as it hits her tongue. There are _tears_ in Lori's eyes. Melina has never seen her so concerned, not even with that kitten she's found on the way from the fall. What kind of monster could look at face like that and not immediately work to make the world a better place just to make her smile again?

"I promise."


End file.
